Synopsis:
Gripping story is based on Ruark's own observations of life in East Africa during the Mau Mau emergency. Ruark was hunting with professional hunter Harry Selby at the time, & this fictitious account is probably the best ever written on those dark days of colonial Kenya. 6x9 inches; 566 pgs.

More Information:
This is the story of Peter McKenzie, & the setting is colonial Kenya at the outset of the Mau Mau Emergency. McKenzie grows up on the family farm & becomes a professional hunter. His life is idyllic, & there seems not a worry on the horizon. However, the Mau Mau terrorists & the ensuing emergency puts a grinding halt to everybody?s life in Kenya, especially farmers in rural areas. It also puts a severe strain on McKenzie & his new bride. McKenzie & his fellow farmers & professional hunters are forced to kill Mau Maus rather than buffalo & elephant. They go about it in a most cunning way, & Ruark?s descriptions of these episodes must count as the most vivid & realistic ever recorded.

This gripping story is based on Ruark's own observations of life in East Africa during the Mau Mau emergency. Ruark, ever the journalist, was hunting with professional hunter Harry Selby at the time, & this fictitious account is probably the best ever written on those dark days of colonial Kenya.

WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING:"Something of Value is a novel based on events that took place in Kenya Colony during the violent Mau Mau insurrection of the 1950s, an uprising that was confined almost exclusively to members of the Kikuyu tribe. Robert Ruark, the author, happened to be on an extended hunting safari during the early stages of the rebellion. Being a journalist at heart, he took time off from the hunt to visit scenes where particularly brutal murders had occurred & was able to interview firsthand those involved?white settlers, people from various local tribes including the Kikuyu, police, army personal, government administrators, & even some of the insurgents themselves who had been captured by security forces in the forests. This enabled him to produce in a very short space of time a book that offered a balanced picture of the background & causes that precipitated the events of Africa's first colonial uprising of the twentieth century. In my opinion Something of Value is certainly his best novel. It is a powerful, gripping, & sometimes shocking novel that presents an enlightening glimpse into the lives of all sections of the population in Colonial Kenya fifty years ago." ? Harry Selby.